Ready Or Not
by ladyoftheknightley
Summary: Life has a habit of throwing things at you when you're not ready for them, and you just have to deal with that. Charlie Weasley gives Oliver Wood some advice, and in the aftermath of the war, Oliver attempts to return the favour. Rating for some language.


**A/N: **This was written for The Epicness That is Charlie Weasley competition at HPFC. The prompts I used were: goodbye, flicker, practise makes perfect, sky is the limit, contrary, and downpour, and the character I had to pair him with was Oliver Wood. Hope you enjoy, and please do drop me a review if you liked it!

**Disclaimer: **Not mine in any way.

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"Mate, what are you doing?! It's pissing down!"

I looked up and saw Charlie jogging over to where I was sheltering under the boughs of a large tree on the edge of the Forest. The weather had been fine when I'd left the castle, but a sudden downpour had begun a few moments before and as I'd never been any good at drying spells, I'd thought it best to get out of the worst of it.

"I could ask you the same question!" I replied, as he leant against the side of the tree.

"I've been visiting Hagrid," he said. "He's been breeding some—er, well, it's probably best if I don't tell you. Plausible deniability, you know?"

"Sure," I nodded. This explanation made sense – Hagrid was likeable enough, but his judgement about what constituted a dangerous creature was questionable at best, and Charlie was frankly no better. "And I'll remember to steer well clear of his house later – I'm quite enjoying having all my limbs attached in the right places..."

"Oh, don't stress – Madam Pomfrey can fix anything!" Charlie said, waving a hand. "Anyway, what're you doing out here? Warming up for tomorrow?"

"Pretty much," I said. "Practise makes perfect, you know? I want to be sure I'm not going to screw up. Ravenclaw's Chasers are really good this year, and—"

"Don't be daft," Charlie cut across me. "You're the best Keeper in the school and you'll be fine tomorrow."

"Yeah, but—" I started to protest.

"But nothing," he cut in again. "Anyway, there's something I wanted to tell you – but it's a secret so don't go blabbing to the rest of the team, yeah? Seriously, this is something you need to keep under your hat for a while."

"What is?" I asked, intrigued. Charlie wasn't exactly the secretive sort, so I couldn't imagine what would have him looking over his shoulder to check that no one was listening to our conversation.

"I'm leaving school," he said, "at the end of this year. I've had an offer for a job, and I'm going to take it."

"You're going to play Quidditch?!" I asked excitedly. Charlie was one of the best Seekers the school had seen for a long time – I'd even read a column in _Which Broomstick?_ about up-and-coming players recently that suggested he could play for England in a few years if he carried on like he did. He was an unusual player in many respects – Seekers are usually of much slighter build than he was, and he actually more resembled a traditional Beater than a Seeker. But his reflexes were second to none, and the only match we'd lost since he'd joined the team had been the one he missed when he was ill in his fifth year. Frankly, it was more than a bit alarming to imagine how we'd survive as a team without him. Our other players were good, but catches win matches as the saying goes, and without a good Seeker...well, we didn't have a Kneazle's chance in hell.

"Nah," he shook his head. "I like Quidditch, don't get me wrong, but it's not what I want to do with my life. There's a position become available on a Dragon Reserve in Romania, and I found out this morning I've got the job, so...I'm going."

"But what about your NEWTs? Don't you have to stay in school until you've got them?"

"Well, let's face it, I'm never going to be Bill," he replied. "I'm only doing four subjects and he did six and got Outstanding for all of them. The only one I'm likely to get an O in is Care of Magical Creatures, and to be honest, the people at the reserve aren't that interested in your exam results or whatever. They want people who can understand the dragons, and they train you on the job, so...yeah. Besides, you don't technically have to stay in school once you've got your OWLs, but most people do because the majority of jobs need NEWT grades. I'm lucky that these people don't want them."

"Well, congratulations on getting the job," I replied. "But why the big secret?"

"I wasn't sure at first if I was going to get the position," he said, "so I didn't want to tell people that I was leaving then have to be all 'actually, I didn't get it'. And...er...I kind of have to break it to my parents that I'm moving to Romania which should be fun!" I laughed at this. "_Anyway_, the reason I'm telling you all of this is because I went to speak to McGonagall about the Quidditch team today – we'll need a new Captain."

"Sure," I nodded. "Who did you have in mind?"

He looked at me like I was stupid. (And okay, I'm not the sparkiest wand in the room, but it doesn't mean you have to rub it in...) "You, of course!"

"_Me_?!" I said incredulously. "Have you gone completely insane? I can't be captain! I'm only a third year!"

"Well I'm not giving up my badge just yet – you'll be a fourth year when you're made Captain. Besides, McGonagall agreed with me about you: you understand the game and you have a hell of a lot of motivation and talent. You'll be a great Captain!"

The worry I'd felt about Gryffindor's prospects without Charlie was _nothing_ to how I felt now that I'd be responsible for the team. I was going to go down in history as the worst Captain ever, the Captain who'd taken Gryffindor from the cup winners five years in a row to the team who would be laughed off the pitch within moments of setting foot on it. I'd never play Quidditch again. I'd probably have to leave the country, thinking about it. I'd never—

"Oliver, mate, are you still breathing?!" Charlie asked, looking at me in alarm. Belatedly, foolishly, I inhaled. "That's better," he said. "It's going to be my goodbye match tomorrow – I can't have my star player dying on me..."

"I'm not the star player, and I _can't_ be Captain," I replied, more aggressively than I'd meant to. A flicker of surprise crossed his face.

"I thought you'd want the captaincy," he said.

"Well, yeah, when I was a _seventh year_," I said. "And when we'd actually have a Seeker playing on our team! I'm not Captain material – not yet, anyway. In a few years I might be, but now? Of course I'm not ready for it! And you can give me all the motivational speeches you want and tell me that the sky's the limit and I can do anything I put my mind to, but that's a lie. I'd love to be Captain at some point – but I'm not ready for it _now_."

Charlie shrugged. "Sometimes opportunities present themselves when you're not ready for them, but you just have to suck it up and take them. Am I ready to move out to Romania and train as a Dragon Handler? Am I _fuck_. But if I don't do it, I'll end up regretting it – and I probably won't get another job offer like this one for a good few years, so I'm gonna take it. Besides," he paused, adopting a faux old-man-of-the-hills voice, "I see a lot of myself in you, young Oliver. You're a short, stubby kid with ears too big for his head and an inability to talk to the fairer sex. Give it a few years, though, when you've grown a few inches and developed a bit more of a flirting technique, you'll have more success – in _everything_. Being Captain'll help you with that, like it helped me. And if all else fails, just make it up as you go along. It's worked for me over the years!" he finished cheerfully.

"I'll bear that in mind," I said faintly. Somehow, it wasn't very reassuring...

"Now come on," he said. "This rain's stopped, so we can get back to the castle now. I want you well rested so we can flatten Ravenclaw tomorrow!"

"We'll trounce 'em," I said.

"That's the attitude I like to see!" he said cheerfully, as we started back to the school. "And if you don't keep trouncing everyone, I'll be coming back to sort you out!"

"There's the motivation I needed," I replied.

"You'll be fine," Charlie said. "We'll win everything – we always do."

On the contrary, he was to be proved wrong on both counts. Whilst we won our match against Ravenclaw, and therefore the House Cup, the next day, we failed to win anything the following year as I couldn't find a Seeker at all. (At one point, it got to the stage where I was seriously considering putting Mrs. Norris on a broom and calling her our Seeker. There was no one willing to take Charlie's place on the team, I guess because playing in the shadow of one of the best players Hogwarts had seen in years – who then gave it all up for a completely different career – was just too daunting.) Despite this, Charlie was clearly having too much fun in Romania, as he didn't come back to sort me out at all.

It wasn't until my seventh year – the year we _finally_ reclaimed the Quidditch Cup for Gryffindor – that I heard from him again. He sent me a brief letter of congratulation, I wrote back thanking him and suggesting that we meet up for a drink when he was next in the country, he said he'd be in touch and then...nothing. Neither of us were exactly what you'd call the letter writing types, and we ended up completely missing each other at the World Cup that year.

The next few years of my life were pretty Quidditch dominated, and I didn't spend that much time away from the pitch of mixing with old school friends. The first ex-teammate I actually came across was Katie Bell, when she was in hospital after being cursed during her final year of school. Seeing her lying there, so small and helpless, I realised that these rumors of war weren't rumors - they were fact. I decided that enough was enough, that I was going to get involved with the fight against Voldemort, and so my thoughts turned back to Charlie and the rest of the Weasleys. It was well known that they were involved in the resistance movement against the Death Eaters, and so I went to see Fred and George to see if they knew of anyone I could be put in touch with. It took a few months for things to get sorted – secrecy was paramount, and it wasn't exactly as though the Death Eaters worked to a convenient schedule, so things kept getting in the way, but eventually I became involved in the work the Order of the Phoenix was doing.

Oh, nothing massively important – I wasn't skilled enough at duelling, healing or espionage to be involved in the high level work – but basic patrolling of half-magical villages to protect the muggles living there, and occasionally getting into the odd scrap with what usually turned out to be Death Eater wannabes. The war almost ended up being good fun for me, as strange as that may seem. The work I was doing wasn't a picnic, but it wasn't terribly dangerous, not like the work the inner circle of the Order was doing, and it was exhilarating. The twins and I made a good team: we all had excellent sporting reflexes, we knew each other well from the times we'd played together well on the Quidditch team and of course, we had their products from the joke shop, which saved our necks on numerous occasions.

We became skilled at dealing with groups of Snatchers, distracting them long enough to disarm them and freeing the muggleborns they had captured. But we weren't always so lucky. One night, I was cursed from behind by a masked Death Eater. Fred and George managed to get me to safety, but that night, we weren't able to take any of them down.

I have no recollection beyond the first few moments of our duel – I blacked out as soon as I was hit and did not wake up until after the twins had apparated me away to safety. The first thing I saw when I opened by eyes was red hair – but much longer than that of the twins'. "Charlie?" I asked.

"Nah mate, it's Bill, Bill Weasley," said the blurry face standing before me.

"Hi," I muttered, trying to sit up. Bill pushed me back down onto the settee I had been laying on when I started swaying alarmingly. It took me a few moments to be able to sit up unaided, and when I finally could, I turned and looked over at Bill. I couldn't help the cry of shock which escaped from my mouth upon seeing his face. "How—?" I began

"Greyback," he said grimly.

I nodded in understanding. The name held almost as much fear as Voldemort's did at that point.

"I'm not surprised you thought I was Charlie though – my scars are worse than his, these days," he added, trying to make a joke of things.

"Was he attacked too?!" I asked.

"No, but he's got a fair few injuries of his own over the years, working with those dragons," Bill said. "'Course, the ridiculous thing about it is that he's probably the safest one of us right now, working with wild dragons. He's still in Romania, trying to get foreign support for the Order when he's not working, but he's pushing to come home. Mum doesn't want him to – she likes knowing he's safe over there, which makes a change from the past five years of 'Oh, I do hope Charlie's alright with those dragons!'," he finished in a falsetto impression of his mother.

I was distracted from replying by Fleur, his wife, coming in to check on my injuries (remarkably, nothing a few potions and a good night's rest wouldn't cure) and the twins returning from informing the higher-ups in the Order where we'd got to. Fleur insisted that we all stay at their cottage so she could keep an eye on us, and we spent most of the rest of the evening chatting idly together.

But when they all retired to bed, I found myself unable to sleep, dwelling on Bill's words from earlier. How was it that Charlie, who worked with the most dangerous creatures known to wizardkind, was safer than the rest of his family back in Britain? Up until this point, the war had almost been a game to me – a terrible thing, yes, but something that happened to other people. The Woods didn't have the Purest family tree, but both my parents came from fairly respectable wizarding stock and kept their heads down (as I did too, at least up until this point). We weren't exactly high up on Voldemort's list of priorities.

My injury in the fight, and Bill's comments about Charlie changed all that for me in just one evening. This was no game. This was _serious_.

It did not take long for things to become even more serious. My realisation occurred in early February, the final battle of the war on the second of May. I shall not get into that here – it was a horrific day, and the less I dwell on it, the better. Physically, I survived it relatively unscathed – I broke my ankle and cracked a few ribs, but this could be mended in a trice with magic, and I've honestly suffered worse in Quidditch matches. Mentally, however...well, there's a reason why I don't want to talk about it.

If such a thing were possible, the days after the battle were even worse. We had to catalogue the dead, find out who had passed away and who was still missing, inform the families of those who had died and start the mammoth clearing-up task at Hogwarts. I volunteered myself for all of these tasks and more, mostly because I felt guilty. Guilty because I wasn't injured when so many had died; guilty for not taking this seriously enough earlier on; guilty because I had not lost a single family member (my parents arrived with the reinforcements, but both survived the battle in one piece) and mostly guilty because I had to carry the dead body of a not-yet-seventeen year old boy, who gave more to the cause than I could ever hope to.

When I carried Colin's body into the Great Hall, I promised myself that, if I made it out alive, I would go to all the funerals I could of those who sacrificed themselves in the battle. The promise was to Colin, but it was one I kept – I did indeed go to every funeral.

They were strange, not only because most of them were for people who died in their teens or twenties, in the prime of their lives, but because I'd never been to a funeral before and I had no idea what to expect. I'd missed Dumbledore's, and I only had one surviving Grandparents. Two had died before I was born, another passed away when I was four. Whilst I had technically attended that funeral, I remembered nothing of it.

The first funeral I went to was that of Matthew Abercrombie. Matthew had been on the Quidditch team – my original one, back when I was in third year, Charlie sixth and he seventh. I had not seen him since he graduated – indeed, I had (as terrible as it may sound) completely forgotten he existed – but he had turned up to fight in the battle and died in it, and so I felt I owed it to him to attend his funeral. I arrived early, and milled around slightly awkwardly with all the people who had known Matthew much better than I had. I wished there was someone there I knew and could talk to, and, fortunately for me, moments before the service was due to start, Charlie arrived.

I was surprised, but not shocked, to see him - he had known Matthew at school for a longer time than I had, after all. He passed on his condolences to Matthew's parents and husband, and then came to sit next to me. The funeral service went on for longer than I thought it might, and I could sense, rather than see, Charlie growing restless beside me. Halfway through the final hymn, he gave up completely and discreetly left the service. After a moment's hesitation, I followed him.

"You alright mate?" I asked, once we were outside, then instantly kicked myself. "Sorry. Stupid question, yeah?"

He gave a sort of shrug and shook his head. "Did you know Matt?" he asked in response.

"A bit, but we lost track after school and stuff. This is the first of the funerals for the people who died in the battle, though, and I promised myself I'd go to all of them... And I mean, I did know him a _bit_, so...sorry, I'm rambling," I said, upon realising that he probably wasn't benefiting from hearing my internal monologue right now.

"It's okay," he sighed. "I didn't really know him either. But I wanted to...God this is awful, don't hate me...I wanted to go to his funeral to see if I could cope."

"Can you...er...cope? With—er—what it is that you're—um—coping with?" I asked hesitantly, after it became clear he wasn't going to continue.

"Tonks was...she was my best friend. Even when she married Remus, she was still my best friend," Charlie said slowly. I gathered that there was more to this pronouncement than he was saying, but I didn't pry. "Fred...my little brother. He's dead. Gone. And these people...they are some of the people I've loved most in my life. And I have to go to their funerals. And I don't know if I can face it." He sighed. "I came to Matt's funeral to see if I could cope with the whole thing. And even though I barely knew him, even though he meant next to nothing to me, I _still_ couldn't. I'm not going to be able to cope with Tonks' funeral, let alone Fred's. What am I going to do? What am I going to do?!"

The question was clearly rhetorical, but I decided to answer it anyway. "Someone once gave me some advice," I began, "the gist of which was: sometimes you don't want to have to do things, but you have to do them anyway."

Charlie stared at me for a moment. "_That_," he said, "is fucking awful advice. Who told you that?!"

Despite everything, I couldn't help but laugh briefly. "You did. But it sounded a bit more inspiring coming from you somehow..."

"_I _did? Merlin. Was I drunk?" he asked.

"No," I replied. "Well, you'd just come back from Hagrid's so actually, you might have been. You were—"

"Oh, I remember," he said. "I'd just told you you'd be the Captain and you didn't want to accept it. But that's a completely different situation, how can you—"

"Well, yes it was, but the phrase still applies. Sometimes good things happen to you when you're not ready for them, and sometimes bad things happen to you when you're not ready for them. I mean, people usually aren't ready for bad things at all – that's what makes them so bad – but sometimes the timing's worse than other times. But in both cases, you just have to sort of pick yourself up and move on – but remember, you're not alone. Like with the Captain thing, I definitely wasn't ready for it, but I didn't have to do it alone – I had the team, and everyone else in Gryffindor as well, supporting me. You don't have to do this alone! I _know _it's not the same, but it's true. You've got your family, and—"

"My family," he snorted. "Like I didn't just swan off and leave them for most of the war..."

"You were helping to recruit people from other countries to—"

"Yeah, but I should have been _here_, with my family. I stayed away when they needed me most, and now I've got to tell them that I can't cope with going to the funeral of my own brother? Oh, George'll love that, he will! Mum'll think it's just fantastic! Bill won't—"

"Okay, alright," I said, dragging him away from the entrance to the church. The funeral-goers were starting to leave, Matthew's service being over, and Charlie was attracting attention. "I understand what you're saying, but I know your family. They wouldn't think any worse of you for telling them what you've just told me, that you're struggling to cope with it all. Hell, most of them are – most _everyone_ is, for all we're supposed to be celebrating You-Know-Who's downfall."

"They wouldn't, but I would," he replied morosely. "I promised myself that I'd be there for them this time, that I'd be the one to hold things together. I missed out on so much before, I _promised _myself that I'd be there for them all properly now. Mrs. Tonks and baby Teddy, too. But I can't even manage that."

"Huh," I said. He looked at me questioningly. "I kind of...I've promised myself a similar thing. Well, I promised Colin Creevey, really..." I realised that I was going to have to explain further, as by now Charlie looked terribly confused. "I treated the war as a bit of a joke – it's all fun and games, and no one I know is going to get seriously hurt. Then I saw what happened to Katie – you know Katie Bell? I happened to meet her in St. Mungo's, just after she'd been cursed and that made me wise up a bit, but I didn't properly 'get it', I don't think, until I was literally carrying the dead body of a sixteen year old boy across the grounds of a fucking _school_ last week. So I've said to myself – to Colin, really – that I'll go to all these funerals."

"What for?" Charlie asked. "I mean, it's a noble thing to do, but you're not going to bring them back by sitting at a funeral feeling guilty that they're dead and you're not. Trust me – I know enough about that..."

"I'm not really sure myself," I sighed. "Penance, I guess? Guilt plays a part, too. But...to be honest, I was moments from walking out of the service we were just in and, terrible as it obviously is that he's dead, I didn't know Matthew Abercrombie at all. I'm...it's going to be so much worse when the funerals are for people I do actually know."

"You don't _have _to go," he said.

"I do. And you know that," I answered.

"I do," he sighed.

"Look, the point of me telling you all that was to say you don't have to go through it all alone," I said. "You may not want to talk to your family, but talk to your friends – talk to me, if I can help. Sharing things makes theme easier to bear."

He considered this. "That, I guess, is slightly better advice that 'sometimes things happen when you're not ready for them'."

"Well it's obviously better – I thought of it, not you," I joked. He gave a half-chuckle.

"You're right," he said. "And – whilst I appreciate the offer – I think I should go home and talk to my family, really. They'll be needing me as much as I'll be needing them. But you should keep in touch too – we should get a drink in the Leaky soon, yeah? It'll give us something to think about that's not this fucking horrible situation."

"Sounds good. _Really _good. I'll see you soon," I replied. He went to apparate away, but turned back just before he did so.

"This Katie – how is she now?" he called.

"She's in the hospital again – she got hit with some curses during the battle. But they reckon she's gonna pull through, so...yeah," I said shortly. Thinking of poor, sweet Katie, trapped in St Mungo's yet again and probably injured so severely she'd never be able to fly again was just too horrible, and I didn't like to dwell on it.

"You might want to tell her how you feel," he told me.

"How I...what?" I asked, completely confused.

"You'll figure it out soon enough," he replied confidently. "Just go and see her. And I'll see you..." Neither of us wanted to say the words 'at Fred's funeral', so he settled for, "on Wednesday." He apparated away.

As it turned out, between the two of us, Charlie is the one who gives the best advice.

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**A/N: **Charlie's birth date has him leaving school in June/July '91, with Harry starting at the beginning of PS in September '91. Yet there are a load of comments in the books from characters about how "Gryffindor haven't won the Quidditch Cup since Charlie Weasley was Captain" which doesn't really make sense given the maths. JK Rowling has admitted to being bad with numbers, but I have an incessant need to make things fit into canon, even when canon doesn't quite work, so voila! Charlie leaves school at the end of his sixth year (as some pupils must be able to do as they're of age; also the twins never sit their NEWTs), giving Gryffindor a chance to lose at Quidditch (sorry Oliver...). Thanks to a bunch of lovely people at HPFC who helped me with the maths of that!

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